Hi! Love this site, great reviews and forum! I love tea and everything that it stands for. Great history, wonderful nutrients, and simple moments. I want to start making my own loose leaf tea blends at home. I’ve been researching everything i can about tea for the last month. Infinite information out there regarding tea history and processing procedures, but not much on how to make your own flavored tea blends. We all know of Teavana and some of their stuff is good, but I’m setting out to start making my own blends with some organic herbs, some of which I will grow in my backyard, some freeze dried organic fruit, and some organic “natural flavorings.” I hope to give them as gifts when i hone my skills and eventually vend them at local farmers markets. Can someone point me in the right direction as a far as where to source the flavorings and how to properly apply them to the loose tea leaves?!

I was just about to start a similar thread, I’m so glad it’s out there already!
I have been drinking straight teas most of my life and suddenly am feeling this urge for flavor – rose, orange and other fruit flavors mostly, but anything to kick the winter blues gets my interest.
My initial experiments with infusions(dried fruit,herbs,chocolate nibs, spices)have been discouraging – there just does not seem to be enough flavor.Freeze-dried raspberries (from Trader Joe’s)and black tea combination produced the best effect for me so far.
I’ve been reading that tea companies use essential oils – can a mere mortal get these somewhere? And how would we go about adding it to tea?
Plese share what you found out!